The plan was actually far less dense and housing-friendly than plans that have been brought forth before (one which goes all the way back to 2004 when then-3rd District Councilmember Gary DeLong tried to update SEADIP).

In fact, the increase in housing for the plan is rather dismal: from the 4,079 estimated to exit now to 6,663 at buildout. (Former plans had decided to address the housing crisis and build 9,518 units instead—but that was just too much for the fragile NIMBYs.)

But what was more interesting than those quips was this comment, apparently given by someone with a degree in architecture:

Ms. Blanca, I want to point out a few problems with your assessment.

The height increase—designated in the areas which have already been developed, two areas to be specific—is from three stories to five. Five stories. A skyscraper, as defined by Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, is no shorter than 100 meters. That’s 39 stories, Ms. Blanca. And if you’re referring to the seven-story caveat in the plan, that is for only two parcels of land, the structures have to be hotels, and the structures can’t account for more than 15% of the parcel.

There are no skyscrapers so stop saying there are.

You smell gentrification? Well, that’s actually the distinct stench of misnomering and misinformation.

Gentrification is a wildly complex beast and, for the sake of this conversation, I will whittle it down into a few sentences. Gentrification involves the cultural and physical displacement of marginalized communities through two means: development coming and literally handing them eviction notices because the land has been bought or will be redeveloped; or, on the other hand, the influx of outside investment in a neighborhood which typically had no previous investment causes a skyrocket in rent and then prompts displacement and the inability for those longtime residents to reinvest in their neighborhoods.

The key thing here is the displacement of marginalized communities—of which the marina-in-our-backyard folks of the 3rd District are not. Secondly, wrecking balls are not coming in to blow away your marina like many poor folk have experienced when a 30-story-plus tower is built upon the home of their neighbors and friends who can’t afford to have internet let alone move.

Also, the 3rd District is the most affluent in the entire city.

This is not gentrification so stop saying it is.

There should have been public hearings? There were, Ms. Blanca. In fact, there were fifty of them.

This is not about a lack of public hearings so stop saying it is.

Creating more housing and commercial space, Ms. Blanca, does not “stiffle [sic] economic growth.” What stifles economic growth is actually a lack of housing and density in urban areas, especially when it comes to an urban coastal community, because it prompts the cost of living to skyrocket and caters to a higher and higher part of the economic stratum while dismissing the ability to create affordable housing or increase overall housing supply. When people spend too much money on rent, every other source of the economy loses.

This is not the stifling of our economy so stop saying it is.

Freeway exits and onramps are the responsibility of Caltrans, not municipalities. These potholes that ruin your car? That issue should be taken up with the agency responsible for them, not used as a non-sequitur to make a point about a land use update.

And let’s just say you’re referring to pot holes on the streets for the sake of this conversation. That has to do with the general budget of the entire city/Public Works Departments that maintain streets—not a land use document which dictates how development along and around streets work. Either way, non-sequitur.

In this comment, you also seem to insinuate that money is being “wasted.” Do you want to know what your constant I-Hate-Anything-New-in-My-Neighborhood sentiment cost the other taxpayers in order to do this new plan because you kept shooting down previous ones? $1 million. Yup, SEASP cost us $1M because the other plans kept getting shot down by misinformers like yourself.

This is not about potholes—especially potholes not under the jurisdiction of the City of Long Beach—or wasting money so stop saying it is.

In other words, don’t fuel misinformation about something that has been battled for over a decade and using soundbites you know nothing about—especially gentrification and density—in order to keep your precious little bubble perfect while the future gets screwed. (And with the plan as is? Well, you screwed the future: no one but the wealthy will be able to live there.)

Victor Hernandez referred me to this article. I applaud you for writing this. It prompted to revisit government resources and documents regarding Long Beach, more specifically the 2013-2021 Housing documents. I may not be qualified, I may not be be as gun-ho for change. As part of a generation of emerging leaders all I ask for is hard facts, accountability, and follow through. According to the 2013-2013 Housing Element Document: Page 40:
The documented median rent for all sizes of housing units by number of bedrooms was $1,250, while the documented average rent was $1,395.
Source: Craigslist.org, April 20, 2013, to April 22, 2013.

Page 43:
To afford a median-priced home of $437,000 in Long Beach, a household income of approximately $109,000 (168% of the County median income for a family of four) would be needed (Table 21). Renting an average apartment at $1,395 would require less income ($67,000); however, based on wage data from 2012, many of the occupational categories in Los Angeles County pay lower wages than needed to afford housing in Long Beach.

https://la.curbed.com/…/long-beach-new-apartments… “Construction on both projects is expected to be complete by early 2018. Rents in each building are expected to start around $1,800 per month, with prices up to around $2,500.” According to Studio T Square 2

ictor Hernandez I applaud you for writing this. It prompted to revisit government resources and documents regarding Long Beach, more specifically the 2013-2021 Housing documents. I may not be qualified, I may not be be as gun-ho for change. As part of a generation of emerging leaders all I ask for is hard facts, accountability, and follow through. According to the 2013-2013 Housing Element Document: Page 40:
The documented median rent for all sizes of housing units by number of bedrooms was $1,250, while the documented average rent was $1,395.
Source: Craigslist.org, April 20, 2013, to April 22, 2013.

Page 43:
To afford a median-priced home of $437,000 in Long Beach, a household income of approximately $109,000 (168% of the County median income for a family of four) would be needed (Table 21). Renting an average apartment at $1,395 would require less income ($67,000); however, based on wage data from 2012, many of the occupational categories in Los Angeles County pay lower wages than needed to afford housing in Long Beach.

https://la.curbed.com/…/long-beach-new-apartments… “Construction on both projects is expected to be complete by early 2018. Rents in each building are expected to start around $1,800 per month, with prices up to around $2,500.” According to Studio T Square 2
craigslist: SF bay area jobs, apartments, personals, for sale, services, community, and events
craigslist provides local classifieds and forums for jobs, housing, for sale, personals, services, local community, and events
SFBAY.CRAIGSLIST.ORG

Know when to throw in the towel. He has the power of media on his side and he will force his opinions on everyone within his reach without apology or remorse. He beleives he is doing the right thing by blasting you publicly.

Brian, you owe this woman a sincere apology. You had the nerve to call her out publicly without informing her!!!!!

I don’t think she is a celebrity. She deserves to know if you are going to publicly insult her!

I’m no journalist, but I’m starting to question if you are, after such a hit piece.

If you want to insult and bully your fellow long Beach residents, do it in person instead of hiding behind your computer.

Wow. Pamela, I couldn’t follow either of your above rants , I mean comments. I was unaware that craigslist is an athoritive source for housing data; and I on;y thought they were a website hosting for sale itmes. Is the reality industry aware theyve been supplanted? Oh, and Robert, when you post to social media, you should expect someone may rebut your thesis.

Robert… For one: someone made a comment on a public post from the angle of altering public policy; this means they are opening up their argument to scrutiny. Secondly, I did not attack Ms. Blanca as _a person_ nor did I attack her _character_; this is not defamation. Ms. Blanca presented herself as an authoritative figure (her mentioning her background in architecture) and therefore, doubly opened herself up to scrutiny. Given that this message is being received through Facebook algorithms, I used this platform to discuss the dangers of the misinformation Ms. Blanca is spreading; however, given the fact that some might disagree with me, even with data, I still labeled the piece as opinion.

You have a responsibility that is higher than that., And you absolutely know it.

You can’t honestly beleive, after I have called you out, that you have done nothing wrong?????!!!!!!

You try to weasel out of this by saying she presented herself as an authority?

Please.

I read her comments. And so has everyone else.

(You published this without notifying her)

You got mad.

You didn’t like what she said.

So you used your position of power to defame her. Your article is dripping with your anger. And you were absolutely insulting towards someone that does not have the power you do. And you absolutely did not notify her.

There is no argument against this.

Stop the weaseling. It doesn’t change the published words.

Stop

You are either better than that, or you have no business in journalism.

I called you out for not notifying her before publicly insulting her.

Reread your words. You insulted her and you absolutely know that you did. Your words were emotional. Emotion is not journalism.

If you want to just attack people, GIVE UP YOUR POSITION OF POWER. You disgust me.

I expect an apology and an admission of wrong doing to follow this.

Do this Brian.

You are wrong, and have done wrong. Make this right and learn a freaking lesson.

Firstly, Longbeachize is under a larger nonprofit umbrella whose sole focus is ‘impact journalism’—that is, we advocate for livability issues that include fair and affordable housing access, fostering transit solutions that decrease the dependency on individually-driven automobiles, creating urban design that encourages walking and biking, and fighting for marginalized communities that face cultural or physical displacement. And we advocate for these issues via data, research, and history.

See, here is where many people—good folks like volunteers, community leaders, nonprofits—are bothered with CONO: the lack of reading comprehension, including but now officially not limited to their reading of the LUE.

Robert, this is not an attack on anyone; it is an attack on _stances_ presented by Ms. Blanca and several others. The opening line in dissecting Ms. Blanca’s propositions is quite clear that it is about her assessment, not her character: ‘Ms. Blanca, I want to point out a few problems with your assessment.’

And I did so with facts, data, and contextualization. In other words, your expectation will not be met. I will, however, be more than happy to hear CONO’s position out; I will not, on the other hand, give into someone claiming I demand an apology for publicly rebutting a public group’s very public stance on public policy nor be remotely driven into thinking that this piece is defamatory.

RW Crum says:October 15, 2017 at 6:58 am

Read the First Amendment, pal.

Matt Campbell says:October 4, 2017 at 9:04 pm

Can 2nd Street and Studebaker by the Wetlands at least bury their ghetto power lines, and have landscaped medians? That’s all I ask for…

Robert, are you by any chance Mr. Robert Fox of Council of Neighborhood Organizations. If not, I apologize for implying that you might just be (tactic and vitriol just seem similar). In any case, I am sure you are aware of his/their tactics which are loudly stifling any debate by attacking others that take opposing views. I have not seen Brian shut down debate on this web site so I think he is open to debating the original topic, whereas you and I seem to be debating something else. Oh, and I’m sorry but I meant “Paloma” in my original response, but mistakenly entered “Pamela”. If you could not recognize the mistake then I assume you are the rare person who is always correct. Also,I love the all caps in your responses; sounds like shouting to me. Good day kind sir.

Handled with aplomb, Brian. Robert, it may be helpful for you if you try not to be so rude and arrogant when expressing your opinions. Imagine how you would treat someone if you were speaking them to in person, and use the same level of respect when interacting with others online. You’ll catch more flys with honey, as my Momma used to say! : )

Just as you rant and bully your way across social media. Addison gets to respond. You obviously have a complete inability to tolerate an opposing viewpoint. It’s painfully clear you’re projecting your worst traits upon Brian Addison.

From the sound of this article, you give precisely Zero Fucks about home owners property rights, or the quality of life in neighborhoods (Hint: we don’t like being packed in like sardines).

Additionally, if you would bother to pull your head out of your ass & look at where quite a bit of similar “development” has taken place in our northerly neighbor Los Angeles (perhaps you’ve heard of of). You would know full well that the “development” that has been occurring displaces entire communities & replaces existing low income housing w/ housing costing x2 to x5 times as much in its place. Essentially evicting entire neighborhoods, in the name of “development”. Often these are low income and/or ethnic communities, that are more or less wholesale evicted, so either you’re a bit of a racist, or you just hate poor people.

I doubt that you’ve gone to any of the LUE meeting either… there were a grand total of 4 outreach meetings, not 50… the city officials tried to throw that out there as well & were forced to fully admitted that this claim was entirely false… at a meeting, but you wouldn’t know that.

The current LUE definitely needs to be entirely redone w/ community input (there was none for the current LUE, just Amy Bodek & her developer paid goon squad). Additionally the LUE is anything BUT sustainable as any benefits come in the form of a 1 TIME PAYMENT by the developers to AMY BODEK & her staff… they are the only one’s that benefit from this. And quite frankly, I think they probably paid you for this sad excuse of “journalism”

Mr. Dilly, don’t flatter yourself. Your “featuring” in the article By Mr. Addison was a screen shot of comments to a Long Beach Post article where you were one of seven comments shown, and your comment was totally forgettable. Oh, and you really should learn the difference between what is being proposed in Long Beach (increased density in limited areas along major traffic corridor) and gentrification, which is happening in select neighborhoods in LA and other communities. Gentrification happens without any change in zoning. But then that would require you to take your head out of where the sun don’t shine. As my mother always said, people who can’t make intelligent arguments just swear. Thanks for proving her right again.

Your comment shows precisely the level of ignorance that Amy Bodek & the rest of her team wants you to believe.

A majority of the city is being rezoned w/ height levels & usage types being adjusted wholesale. Nearly every community is being affected & Long Beach will become even more crowded than it already is, and if anyone is of the mindset that this will alleviate rent prices… they are nothing more than delusional.